Sunrise Wading

Boy I am energized again over my photos.  Saturday I gave a talk at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge on my photo art, textures and working with layers.  I think everyone had a great time as we had a lot of laughing and questions and over all fun.  It was really windy out on the waters edge and yet I managed to get a couple interesting shots.  I of course am never happy to just go with the flow so I tried something different with this little image of the egret.  I have been playing with some HDR from photomatrix I got to wondering if I could treat the hdr image like a texture and blend it onto my original image.   Well, yes you can!   So this original image was not taken in braket mode ( that is to say there were not 3 shots taken of it) I used a single image and let the photomatrix just make a map toning copy for me.    I was totally blown away with the end result.  I love how the little sunflowers and green weeds brought so much color into a rather boring blue and muddy grey image that is pretty normal when you are taking shots of white birds, and water. 

Now with some new excitement and ideas its time to look through my old photos again.

Mother Load Painted Buntings

I was so happy to finally spot these little birds.  It was not

easy to find them and they were pretty shy.  Now if truth

were to be told, I might tell you this is actually just 2 birds out

of 8 shots I was able to get before they flew off never to be

found again.  They loved the middle of the road and this big pipe

where they would fly up and chatter, then fly down to the ground again.

Really comical and entertaining.  This image used a texture called

Ancient Wall which I liked as it toned down that glaring rust and

gave some softness to the busy background.  Taken in June 2012

at Hagerman Wildlife Refuge on pad L.

Remebering Louisiana

 I am gathering some of my favorite images from a visit to Louisiana some time back, and having a great time working them over in textures.  The images here are from New Orleans as taken by myself as a tourist.  Packed into such a small area you find so many interesting things such as carriage rides and yes I took one!   The old old Saint Louis Cathedral , the ancient First Street Cemetery with the above ground crypts.  No new body can be put inside till after one year and a day! Some old Law, and what this collection be with out a secret door!

The Old Chicken Ranch

Last week I spied this great old chicken ranch along side the road and was able to get a shot between traffic.  It sure was not much as a stand alone image but with the textures it now seems to have evolved into something rather magical in all its decay.  My recipe is:
*Duplicate background
*Adjust levels
*Hue Sat - de-saturate
*Kristen Frank texture Fantasy Leaves I used on the upper half only with overlay 62%
*Kristen Frank texture Handwriting Linear burn 62%
*Skeletalmess Vintage Bokah overlay 100% with mask for center part of image
*Kristen Frank Texture Moon hard light 100% , masking out foreground and barn
*another levels adjustment
*New layer for the frame effect
*signature
Enjoy ~
This can be seen better over at Flicker:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11605172@N05/6938875451/in/photostream

The Challenge of White

A little exercise in our Totally Texture group was to use a texture with the theme being white.  I had just taken this photo of the little cherub the day before so I was happy to use it for the challenge.  This image and so much clutter in the background from Lowes garden department, I ended up taking the statue out and placing it on a soft grey background, desaturated the statue and then added two layers of Kim Klassen's Ocean Side.  Once on soft light 82% and again with multiply at 82%.  I added the little soft frame effect to finish it off.  Flattened it and bumped up the brightness just a bit and signed it.  Enjoy ~

Crane and Turtle a Painterly Recipe

Over at Beyond Layers group Kim gave us a new texture to play with called Shine.  Mostly the group uses her textures with still life photos so me being me, I had to try it with a nature photo.  I am glad I did.  The original photo has so much distraction but there is that cool little story trying to be told of the little turtle on the log looking up at the crane.  I am thinking he might become a meal!
My recipe for this painterly image:

Background > duplicate
Levels adjustment
Hue Sat adjustment
Filter>dry brush lowest settings
KK Shine texture soft light 87%
KK Shine texture again multiply
59%
Kristen Frank Texture Paint 64 overlay 56%

I kept an extra background image off to the side which I did in the lowest watercolor setting, and now placed that on top of the work
blend mode 88%.

Flattened the layers, added a little frame and signature and a little last minute brightness adjustment.

Meadow Lark

This lovely big Meadow Lark was a look out in the pasture last summer.  Boy I am going to miss that pasture, it had quite a bit of life in it.  Anyway, this big boy just sat up on his branch and sang and sang...


Texture by Kim Klassen Worn and Weathered and another texture by Distressed Jewel called Painted Days Ahead, and a little brush effects for the sky, a bit of burn to the edge of the layers.

Flutterby Dream

For awhile I was posting birds and now it seems its butterflies.  They are so dreamy and delicate in contrast to our harsh environments.  This lovely Eastern Tiger Swallowtail was a giant in my garden last year.  I worked him over with a few textures after I did the Orton effect on the original image.  To make the Orton effect in photoshop, you duplicate the background>apply>screen 100%>blur>gausian blur about 19%
then you move that layer on top of the original.  Blend mode>multiply>adjust % and go from there.   I learned this from an article in http://www.naturephotographers.net/

I spend quite a bit of time looking at people's photography and gathering ideas to make my own images peculate with interest.  Enjoy ~

Busted!

I really love macro work and if you love that you gotta love the little world of insects and bugs.  One thing I have always admired in others images was the nack to be able to give expression to bugs that sorta told a story.  Here this lovely Tiger Swallowtail is peeking over a leaf and I was just lucky to get this as he was getting off his flower and  ready to lite onto another.  Enjoy ~

Drinking Buddies

What luck, as I rummage through a couple boxes left over from the move and find some photos from last summer burned to a cd!  The couple bees that came late in the drought of summer were regulars at the bird bath.  I would fill the bath up about 3 times a day for the birds but everything was parched with thirst.
So here are my little buddies having a cool drink with a great texture from SkeletalMess called Bokah and then a great water pane texture from Distressed Jewel which gave my water a sky look with that bokah texture.  Finally some nice little brushes from French Kiss.  Enjoy~